Dempsey vs James Toney

Look there is no doubt it is a very interesting fight as Tony was an outstanding, highly under rated fighter .. I just think it's an amazing match up that can go either way as Dempsey remains to me an unproven commodity as far as how great he actually was ..

 

I'm sure Dempsey would look more impressive if you let him take the peds that toney did in his heavyweight career.

 

He took Rahman to school, same Rahman it took Lennox 2 fights to beat.

 

Rahman, holyfield were past their prime.

 

Perhaps the shoulder injury accounts for his losses to Byrd Toney, and Donald, and explains why he got some better results after taking two years out.

So that brings us to the question of what Toney’s best win is.

On paper it would be his win over John Ruiz for the WBA title which was subsequently overturned.

I fancied that he should have got the decision against Sam Peter in the first fight, and Ring Magazine gave him the decision against Hasim Rahman for the vacant WBC title.

You have three very solid wins there, that didn’t quite pan out for one reason or another.

 

Rahman was the undisputed champ 1 year before the fight. It was a huge win for Holyfield and one of his best performances. Despite what some geezers here say, Holyfield is an infinitely better win than the fat mediocre Jess Willard who hadn't fought in 4 calendar years.

 

Nobody is disputing that Holyfield was a much better fighter than Jess Willard, but we are talking about the versions that were actually fought on the day. Willard was the undisputed champion when Dempsey beat him, and he was seen as one of the outstanding challengers for Dempsey’s title when Firpo beat him. Holyfield had pretty much fallen off a cliff when Toney beat him, though he would go on to have better results in the future.

 

On the day Holyfield was much better than Jess Willard ever was or could of hoped to be. Willard was a big fat slow mediocre boxer who hadn't fought in 4 years and was just a big pylon cone waiting to get knocked over. Holyfield while past prime was in shape and was active. He was also only a year removed from his great performance against Rahman.There is no question Holyfield was the tougher assignment on the night.